Stoney Cove, Leicestershire - 3rd August 2000
A well-deserved day-off after all the documentation-writing at work over
the previous week. Jon, Darren Mark and I made the second visit to Stoney. The little 205
managed very well with all the kit.....
Darren trying to get his Dad's dive computer working in a puddle !
Here are the dive profiles from the trusty wristwatch as well as some
observations and occurrences of the day.
Dive #1
|
|
| This started off to be a dive to the 'Stanegarth', the new tug sunk only
two months ago at Stoney. Jon gave Darren the task of navigating this and with a compass
bearing of 055, we missed the thing entirely !!! Jon and Mark had to abort this as Marks
regs. seemed to be blocked with sausage !!! (huh?) so it was left to Darren and I. We
dropped down the wall onto the 22m plateau and plodded on in the hope of seeing the hull
of this beast looming towards us. It was not to be. We first of all bumped into the Wessex
helicopter. The 'M' shaped peak in the middle of the graph is where we first sat on the
tail and then into the cockpit to re-enact scenes from the Vietnam films !! We then ran
into a pair of minis and finally a minibus ! Following the return bearing, we must have
been adrift as we hit the pub - or at least the sunken rooms under it........... ho hum,
more spring rolls !!!
Dive #2
|
|
| After the failed attempt to reach the 'Stanegarth', we then set sail
under Jon's navigation for the Cessna in the west side of the quarry. Passing the cockpit
beneath the 'Bus Stop' jump-off point, we followed the old quarry road down to the 22m
plateau and then followed the wall around the drop down to 36m. We saw the pale blue nylon
guide-line disappearing down into the depths that we encountered on our last visit to
Stoney during Mark's narcotic rush for the surface and I apologise to Jon here as my
buoyancy went AWOL and I suddenly found myself at 25m !! Jon motioned for me to come up a
bit, a request that resulted in a cheeky 'Yes Sir!' salute. Did we find the Cessna
aircraft ?? I don't think we did. There was a plane of some sorts there that Jon missed
completely and only found out about when he turned around to see where Darren and I had
gone. Darren was in the process of trying to lift up the plane by its wing !! ..... he
succeeded !!
Dive #3
|
|
| The final dive of the day was a shallow one around underneath the pub. A
few crayfish scuttled around but there was not too much to see without swimming far round
the East side of the quarry to the Galleon. Jon, after a few abortive attempts at sign
language, managed to get us to the Viscount cockpit that we had passed on Dive #2. We
basically spent the next 20 minutes pratting around with aquabatics and trying to write
'Roy is Fat' in big letters on the side of the fuselage !! Happily tired, it was time to
tackle the motorway network around Birmingham during rush hour on our way home !! |